: 



i 



E458 

.1 
.M64 



f.*\ 
















% A V< ^ J 













vP <p 



,tf ^ 







C, *P 
















^ • " ° A < 









A v *^ 








"W 





°* *•«• a° V> "^ <y 



vO^" 




v % *!,^; 



V^ 1 










^ 4^ 







►veto**. ^ a- , 





°^'**.To' ■ .0' v *•",•' -f -q.. '•." 



V ' 0,i * A ^ ... 




a «, *>raa^'' "o, a** * 




C, vP 
C,~ \P^ 

* <t? ^li "^ 



V 

r . » • 




^O* 




V^ V " ^P 1 ^ ) r vP^ 





A Vv ^ 









^ v 













i9-r. 








* c ° " ° -t 
















iv. V «<? «.♦. 



°o 



v%> .-A 







hs 



Ifeite 



■m 






IP 



fc 



"Perfect Through Suffering," 



if 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



BY REV. L. MERRILL MILLER. 



DELIVERED AT THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN (HI K( II. 

OGDENSBURGH, N. Y., 

Till RSI*. I \' ||| M U iTnW .tor*. 98, 1861. 



Published by Request. 



'Pi 



. 



dH 



OGDENSBURGH: 

ADVANCE STEAM PRINTING HOUSE, WATER STREET. 

1861. 



^^^S-W^ONd' 



g--~*f^f^g> 



titer 

.1 



i£31 



A THANKSGIVING SER1 



BY liEV. L. MEKKILL MILLER. 



Perfect through Sufferings."— Hob. ii. 10. 



Ought we to keep our accustomed fes- 
tival of Thanksgiving this year I Some 
of our singers, under the pressure of the 
times, refuse to chant " Hail Columbia ! 
Happy Land." "Rejoicing in Tribula- 
tion " is, to be sure, an Apostolic injunc- 
tion, and has solid gospel argumentation 
to support it. But was not that written 
for Christians considered only in their re- 
ligious character and when personally 
chastened before God? How shall we, 
as citizens of a commonwealth, filled with 
the alarms of war and all the perils of 
civil strife, regard such a call to joy and 
thanksgiving ? What key-note shall we 
strike on our harp-strings, aud what shall 
be the melody ? " A dirge !" perhaps 
more than one is ready to reply. Thoughts 
and questions like these presented them- 
selves, doubtless, to most persons when 
the public press announced the proc- 
amation of our Governor, calling us to 
renew this time-honored annual visit to 
the House of the Lord, and bring offer- 
ings of adoration and praise to His name, 
" because ■' His merciful kindness is great 
toward us." 

But surely these were efnly first impres- 
sions. Removed as we are — in the Pro- 
vence of God — so far from the scenes and 
immediate results of strife and surround- 
ed by so large a degree with the fruits of 
the field and the blessings of health* and 
social life — exempted from internal disor- 
der — favored with liberty of conscience 



and the uninterrupted pursuits of ordi- 
nary life — with our national rights re- 
spected — partizan animosities fast burn- 
ing out, and the spirit of fraternal kind- 
ness more largely developed all around 
us, certainly we have the most earnest 
and substantial reasons for gratitude and 
praise. These are signal mercies which 
could not have been anticipated in the 
midst of a sovereign State whose highest 
interests are linked with the destinies of 
our glorious Union, and whose rights are 
represented by a hundred thousand of 
her brave sons upon the tented field. 
With scrupulous sincerity and gladness, 
therefore, should we celebrate the day, 
1st. For the actual enjoyment it brings, 
and 2d, for the lessons of true satisfaction 
suggested in connection with the text for 
our country in the future. I. We have 
actual blessings |or which Ave should be 
truly thankful. They are admirably 
summed up in the Proclamation of our 
Governor. This day, designed at first 
as an expression of gratitude to God for 
the abundant harvests of the year, lias 
especial demands upon our notice at the 
present time. We offer to the world an 
astonishing spectacle. We are not only 
able to feed our armies and the people at 
large, but have stores in abundance above 
these demands to supply, to a great ex- 
tent, the wants of other nations. For 
these supplies they are willing and anxious 
to be at peace with us. During the last 



week in October, no less than 1,477,540 
bushels of grain and 83,524 barrels of 
flour were exportod to Europe, bringing 
back two and a quarter millions of dol- 
lars. For one week in September, the 
amount exported reached the sum of three 
millions of dollars in value. It is suscep- 
tible of definite proof that we must re- 
ceive for our cereals alone within the 
present fiscal year, more money from Eu- 
rope than we have heretofore received for 
both food and cotton, and that supposing 
we shall not this year sell one pound of 
cotton to the foreign market, we shall yet 
have a large balance in our favor, which 
will be payable in specie. It is there- 
fore impossible for us to estimate the po- 
litical value of the produce of our fertile 
fields in the present hour of national 
danger. Aside from the justice of our 
cause, these potential reasons appeal to 
the interests of England and France to be 
at peace with us. If these nations did 
not stand at our doors to ask for bread, 
little can we tell of the combinations that 
might have entangled our political rela- 
tions. God be praised for our overflow- 
ing granaries for exemption from hunger 
at home and the fear of enemies abroad ! 

Again: Such has been the nature of 
this unholy rebellion, that its bitterest 
fruits and heaviest callmities have been 
confined to the soil that gave birth to 
traitors and that now cherishes them. — 
The people of the Northern States ought 
not to overlook this kind interposition of 
God toward them to-day. Not a single 
hostile soldier treads upon their soil. We 
hmr of all the ravages and miseries of 
war, but they have not come nigh unto 
us. Fearful sadness, and dismay, and 
distress brood over ravaged hamlets- 
ruined towns — fields where havests have 
been snatched off by hungry soldiers, and 
even cities where life is stagnant and the 
waiting masses are wistfully casting about 



for deliverance and for bread. Here quiet 
citizens are not on the watch lest inva- 
sion or the uprising of suspected slaves 
should imperil their homes and their 
safety. No mother with anguished heart 
clasps her little one to her arms and runs 
for their lives. These painful sights and 
sad experiences are removed far away 
from us. For His great and undeserved 
goodness to us we should give Him most 
humble and hearty thanks. 

II. We also find cause for Thanksgiv- 
ing from considerations growing out of 
the text, for our country in the future. — 
To be made perfect through suffering is 
a doctrine of Christianity which is as 
surprising as any of the wonderful results 
embraced in its mysteries ; and yet it is 
one made quite familiar to those who are 
acquainted with the Scriptures. The 
Apostle says : " It became him, for whom 
are all things and by whom are all things, 
in bringing many sons unto glory, to make 
the Captain of their salvation perfect 
through sufferings." This Captain is the 
Lord Jesus Christ. He was made fully 
qualified for his works by his remarkable 
sufferings. As applied to the Saviour, it 
does not mean that he was made holy, or 
was fitted by them to be a better man — 
but he was by this sorrowful experience 
made a Saviour just adapted to redeem 
man. By his sorrows he was completely 
endowed for the mission he came to ac- 
complish. He thus became a perfect mo- 
del of bearing affliction to all who, as his 
disciples, shall be called to suffer. He be- 
came, also, by his experience, able per- 
fectly to sympathize with his people an 1 
adequately to succor them. He also, in 
his sufferings, completed his great atone- 
ment for transgressions, and hence, as he 
hung upon the cross, in all the agonies of 
death, he could triumphantly say of all 
the work given him to do, " It is finished." 
It is perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 



Thus was the Saviour the highest, holiest 
and best of all that ever livedj 

" Made perfect through suffering." We 
now have such an assurance as we could 
not otherwise have had that he was a 
perfect Saviour — not only in moral char- 
acter, but in his work and in his adapt- 
edness to the wants and circumstances of 
man. 
i The principle of the text finds a dift'er- 
H cut but striking illustration in the expe- 
rience of men disciplined by suffering. 
When afflictions accomplish their intend- 
ed work, men are made better by them, 
and through them are qualified forgreater 
and more extended usefulness. Seasons 
of trial are times of preparation. Hence 
we constantly meet with passages of God's 
Word which teach us that God will dis- 
cipline men for their profit — will perfect 
them through suffering. He often chooses 
his especial servants in the furnace of af- 
fliction. He prepared Joseph for his 
great work in Egypt by his trying expe- 
rience, and Moses for his lofty position as 
the leader of Israel by his long and se- 
vere training away from home and in the 
solitudes of Sinai. Peter and Paul were 
directed to important duties, for which 
their trials eminently qualified them. Lu- 
ther was eminently fitted for his great 
imission as the leader of the Reformation, 
by the peculiar sufferings and experience 
in which he was tried, himself, passing 
through the different phases of his great 
public work in his own private life. The 
severe labors of Washington fe his early 
days, as a surveyor and as a soldier in 
the border strife, as well as his home edu- 
cation, were eminently times of prepara- 
tion for his subsequent brilliant career as 
the leader of the federal arms and as the 
Father of his Country. Many a man has 
been tutored into sobriety, and honesty, 
and economy, and thrift, and earnest, 
holy endeavor, and wide-spread useful- 



ness, in the school of Adversity. By his 
fall, and mortification, and self-induced 
wants, he has been sharpened into self- 
dependence, and honest determination, 
and patient endurance, toiling up the 
hill and onward to competency, and 
honor, and peace. God often uses these 
instrumentalities for'the highest good of 
his people. So he says to his afflicted 
ones, " I am the Lord thy God, which 
teacheth thee to profit." " Blessed is 
the man whom thou chastenest." The 
faith of Abraham, the meekness of Moses, 
the patience of Job, the submission of 
David, and the constancy of Daniel, were 
the happy fruits of their great and singu- 
lar sufferings. And men whose praise 
has from the beginning been prominent 
for goodness and usefulness, have been 
peculiarly lifted above the world by the 
heavy pressure of afflictions. As gold is 
cast into the furnace to increase its puri- 
ty, so God refines his chosen ones in the 
fiery ordeals through which they often 
pass. Hence his way song runs — 

•• Trials must and will befall ; 

But with humble faith to see 
Love inscribed upon them all. 

This is happiness to me." 

However dull may be his pupils, God 
has ways to lead each one of them to the 
best knowledge and most desirable ends. 
But he more frequently teaches them ef- 
fectually through sorrows and trials than 
in any other way. He makes them per- 
fect through sufferings for His will and 
glory. 

We proceed a step farther, and observe 
that God also instructs nations, and leads 
them to perfect their destiny through suf- 
ferings. The periods of their greatest 
prosperity have been their times of great- 
est danger. The iron age of Rome was 
the era of her true glory. Then she ex- 
hibited her courage manhood and virtue 
in the highest degree. She was not 
then tainted or enervated as after- 
wards by the excess of her subsequent 



prosperity and wide-spread luxury and 
indulgence, but compelled to economize 
at home and struggle abroad; forced to 
maintain integrity and honor as the basis 
of her treatment of her citizens and sol- 
diers, and enemies as well as conquered 
subjects ; she inculcated and practised a 
surrender of self to the public good ; and 
by love of country and adoration of the 
household Penatea, and praise of the 
manly virtues, encouraged the spirit and 
formed the legions that subdued the 
world. In those days were found heroes 
who could come from captivity on parole, 
advise their countrymen against peace, 
and then go back to torture and certain 
death ; or heroes like the Decii, who could 
devote themselves to solemn self-sacri- 
fice, and could bid sublime defiance to 
pain, and count dishonor the only evil. 
It was then that the fire called eternal 
burned at the capital, and was tended 
constantly by the vestal virgins, as a type 
and symbol of the duration of the Repub- 
lic. It implied that the duration of 
Rome was co-extensive with the preser- 
vation of her purity of morals. So long- 
as the dignity of her matrons and her 
virgins remained unsullied, so long she 
would last — no longer. Female chastity 
guarded the eternal city. Her progress 
was onward to conquest and greatness 
until the presence of luxury and indul- 
gence undermined her virtue and integ- 
rity, and she gradually lost her courage, 
and enterprise, and empire. 

Consider our past prosperity as a na- 
tion. Call to mind the evils which ex- 
cess and indulgence were rapidly induc- 
ing among us. How long, think you, 
before such a life of wealth, and luxury, 
and indulgence, would sweep us all into 
the vortex of one common imbecility and 
ruin ? 

The rise of England, from the days of 
the conquest of Julius Agricola, when 



the Roman arts and improvements 
were first introduced into Brittany, 
and the Druidical superstition received 
its death-blow at the Isle of Man, has 
been marked by severe revolutions and 
wars of invasion. The arbitrary and des- 
potic powers of the crown were wrested 
away, and the liberties of the people en- 
larged by popular disturbances or ap- 
peals to arms and changes of thrones and 
dynasties. The trial by jury, and the 
important concessions of Magna Charta, 
were wrested from John at the cannon's 
mouth. In the same manner, Charles 
the First was compelled to sign the Peti- 
tion of Rights and Charles the Second 
the Act of Habeas Corpus, which gave 
the utmost possible security to personal 
liberty. While, therefore, revolution and 
war are to be deprecated as great evils 
and heavy judgments, by our proper con- 
duct under them and God's blessing, they 
may be sources of great advantage and 
increased usefulness and happiness. This 
agrees with the teaching of God's word, 
" When thy judgments are in the earth, 
the inhabitants of the world will learn 
righteousness." This was the effect of 
divine chastenment on the Jewish na- 
tion in the wilderness, " When he slew 
them then they sought him." This was 
the experience of Manasseh and his peo- 
ple, " And the Lord spake to Manasseh 
and to his people, but they would not 
hearken. Wherefore the Lord brought 
upon the captains of the host of the king 
of Assyria, which took Manasseh among 
the thorns, and bound him with fetters, 
and carried him to Babylon. And when 
he was in affliction, he besought the Lord 
his God, and humbled himself greatly 
before the God of his fathers, and prayed 
unto him ; and he was entreated of him, 
and heard his supplication, and brought 
him again to Jerusalem, into his king- 
corn. Then Manasseh knew that the 



Lord he was God." And since God of- 
tener instructs men in a time of adversity 
than in the midst of ease, and luxury and 
enjoyment, they have really more reason 
to fear prosperity than adversity. Be- 
cause we have no fear of enjoying ease, 
health and affection, we forget that there 
are evils which flow naturally and gen- 
erally from prosperity, corrupting the 
very basis of all society and affecting the 
entire machinery of the commonwealth, 
and at the same time overlook the cheeks, 
and balances, and benefits which flow 
from social disappointments and public 
chastisement. While we ought to be 
more concerned in prosperity to be thank- 
ful than to enjoy it,- so in adversity we 
should be more anxious about conducting 
ourselves aright under its pressure than 
even to avoid its heavy inflictions. 

The principle of the text, viewed in 
this light, has been verified in our past 
history, and we believe will be more fully 
in our present trials and deliverence. 
Suffering in a common and noble cause 
banded our forefathers together when on 
British soil and in the friendly keeping 
of Holland. Suffering for conscience 
sake made them a peculiar class of men, 
and while it led them to God with in- 
tense devotion, and solemn awe, and un- 
questioning trust, it cast out all fear of 
man and superstitious regard for the as- 
sumtions of crowned heads and titled 
dignities. It led them to protest against 
all encroachments upon human rights, 
and to maintain firm resistance to tyran- 
ny. At length, despairing of justice at 
home, in the spirit of holy devotion and 
lofty self-consecration, they bade adieu 
to all the endearments of fatherland, 
braved the perils of the'deep, and gave 
themselves to the task of establishing, in 
this far distant, inhospitable land, an 
asylum for the oppressed and a home for 
the free. ■ 



Glad and hopeful in their sufferings for 
such an object — 

"Amidst the storm they sang: 

And the stars heard, and the soa! 
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 

To the anthem of the. free! 

Aye, call it holy ground, 
The soil where first they trod ! 

They have left unstained what there they found- 
Freedom to worship God I" 

Another lesson through suffering await- 
ed them, even beyond the struggles for 
subsistence and against the cruelties of 
Indian warfare. It was the long en- 
dured bitterness of oppression and resist- 
ance of the dearest rights of representa- 
tion that at length united the infant col- 
onies in one common protest and declara- 
tion of grievances. Failing here, they 
were compelled to form a confederacy for 
the mutual defence, and appeal to arms. 
Providence had great designs for them, 
and led them along, step by step, until 
they were compelled to go farther than 
their first intentions, and to declare their 
Independence. After the long struggle 
of the Revolutionary War, St. George's 
Cross drooped to the Stars and Stripes, 
and the thirteen original States took 
their places as a new nation among the 
nations of the earth. We had, however, 
hardly started on our career as the United 
States, before the breaking of the bonds 
which held these States together was 
manifest. The States claimed rights 
which nullified the General Government, 
and shipwreck was threatened in the 
outset. Soon, however, impelled by the 
necessities of the case, a convention came 
together for the purpose of forming a 
more perfect union among the States and 
consolidating the General Government for 
all the purposes of self-preservation and 
efficiency. That convention formed the 
Constitution under which, and by the 
blessing of God, we have so largely pros- 
pered and magically increased in power, 
and wealth, and happiness, until the in- 
troduction of the doctrine of secession and 



6 



this great rebellion to aid and enforce it. 
The first statesmen of the land have 
echoed the voice of the noble defender of 
the Constitution, " The Union must and 
shall be preserved," " Liberty and Union 
now and forever, one and inseparable." 
One statesman and his ever-restless con- 
ftituents cried out, "Nullification" but 
the entire voice of the other States and 
their strong arm uplifted by the hero of 
New Orleans, speedily warned them back 
to duty and to silence. Since that time, 
until quite recently, declarations of at- 
tachment and devotion to the Union have 
been earnest, emphatic, and constantly re- 
peated. With one voice we have said in 
those eloquent words, " Our path of duty 
is straight onward ; and it is as clearly 
defined to the view as the milky girdle 
of the heavens in a cloudless night. We 
must stand by the Constitution of our 
country. We must stand by the laws of 
our country, indignantly frowning upon 
all sentiments or utterances of revolution 
ary violence. We must stand by the 
rulers of our country, honoring them as 
the ministers of God to us for good. We 
must stand by the union of our country, 
regarding it as the spring of our bless- 
ings, the palladium of our freedom, the 
sheet anchor of our felicity, and the star 
of hope to the oppressed and downtrod- 
den nations. Let us transmit these prin- 
ciples to our children as we received them 
from our fathers, entire and untainted, 
to be by them in like manner, under the 
shield of the national banner, handed 
down to theirs as a precious and perpetual 
inheritance." 

The war of 1812 was also made the 
source of blessing and gain to the nation. 
We gained increased respect and defer- 
ence for our name abroad, and secured 
honorable advantages for our limited but 
growing commerce. 

And yet again shall we emerge from 



the sufferings of this war, made more per- 
fect for the blessings and purposes of our 
existence as a nation. This will appear, 
if we call to mind the first effect of this 
war. It is a development of our charac- 
ter. We are now sure qf a nationality. 
We have been regarded hitherto more for 
what we might become — more as a doubt- 
ful experiment, than as a true and suc- 
cessful nation. The suspense of the memo- 
rable week in last April was fearful. But 
since the shameful attack on Fort Sum- 
ter, we have arisen to new discoveries and 
importance. The protesting voice of 
twenty-three millions of jjeople, and the 
hastening of thousands of volunteers to 
arms and to Washington, proclaimed us 
a nation in fact, with the mighty sinews 
of aggression and defence. Pure patriot- 
ism, one of the noblest springs of national 
life and honor, flourishes under our Re- 
publican institutions. And the spectacle 
of more than half a million of volunteers 
rushing into the field in eight months, 
without a single conscript, is an uupar 
alleled wonder in the history of all na- 
tions. The offer of money, and sympa- 
thy, and life, in behalf of this government, 
shows its grand hold of the hearts and 
affections of this great people, and that 
they value above all earthly considerations 
its Constitution, and laws, and free insti- 
tutions, which have been, under God, the 
iEgis of our protection and the spring of 
prosperity and our future hope. We 
ought not to forget, in our thanksgivings 
to-day, that God has taught us that we 
have a noble land, and that patriotism 
keeps march with its greatness and pros- 
perity. 

Another advantage of this war is in 
the fact that we discover the feelings of 
other nations. We are taught their dis- 
position toward us; what we have to 
expect from them, and how we are to 
deal with them. It has been a source of 



surprise and mortification to us to wit- 
ness the apparent attitude of England, 
and the mode in which she speaks of our 
faults and weakness. It has been equally 
a surprise and pleasure to grasp the out- 
stretched hand of Russia. In misfortune 
we learn the position in which we stand 
and the means by which we must perish 
or arise to greater honor and power. The 
false friends are exposed, and those upon 
whom we may truly lean are clearly de- 
clared. This war becomes a great bless- 
ing, so far as it points out definitely our 
relations to other nations, and teaches 
how we must deal with them in adverse 
ei re u instances. 

Our national sufferings have developed 
an unexpected degree of variety and 
wealth in our resources. Notwithstand- 
ing eight months' most costly prepara- 
tions and expenditures in war, the Fed- 
eral Government and the loyal States find 
themselves to-day in a far better financial 
position than at the beginning of the 
year. We have more specie on hand by 
one hundred millions of dollars than we 
had at this time last year. 

An arrangement has just been com- 
pleted by the Associated Banks of New- 
York to take the third fifty million in- 
stalment for the Government by the 1st 
of January next, the previous one hun- 
dred millions having already been ta- 
ken. 

The traffic on Northern Railroads has 
incalculably increased. The amount of 
Canal Tolls is nearly one million of dol- 
lars more than last year. Our expendi- 
tures for foreign manufactured goods has 
decreased and domestic manufactures en- 
larged. While the imports since the first 
of January last are one hundred millions 
less than for the same period last year at 
New-York alone, the exports are thirty 
millions more. These figures are for ten 
months . so that, adding to these items 
the one above respecting the specie, we 
may, in round numbers, call the whole 
gain for the year two hundred millions 
of dollars. 

This is a problem for those to solve 
who deluded themselves with the idea 
that the stoppage of cotton exportations 
would precipitate the North into bank- 
ruptcy and overturn our entire commer- 
cial interests. The scheme which was to 
prove our financial ruin has been made 
an element of prosperity to us. 



We shall, too, learn more distinctly just 
what we need, as a people, to consolidate 
and make us a greater and better nation. 
God has been lifting us up to higher and 
better views than mere accumulation or 
selfish indulgence. He is calling us back 
to the simple principles upon which we 
were founded as a religious nation, and 
by which our prosperity has been hither- 
to augmented and made a blessing. We 
see clearly that righteousness alone can 
exalt a nation, and that we can place no 
dependence upon demagogues, or mere 
political creeds or administrations, but 
must rely, under God, upon the intelli- 
gence and virtue of the masses, whose 
elevation and real good must be sought 
in the body politic. Offences must needs 
come, but God can, and, we believe, is 
making these great evils of war a bless- 
ing to us in teaching us these important 
lessons. He is correcting our ostentatious 
extravagance, our selfishness and effemi- 
nacy. He is leading us to see that God 
is just, as well as merciful, and that he is 
a judge, as well as a Father, will punish 
the wickedness of a people, and will 
avenge the cries of the poor and needy. 
And as God has given us peculiar reasons 
in all our past history to believe that we 
are his people, so we must expect from 
his love, and his gracious designs to us, 
and for us, in the future he will chastise 
us for our sins, open our ears to instruc- 
tion, and prepare us for greater useful- 
ness and knowledge. 

A war can never again be inaugurated 
on secession grounds, and, w T e believe, 
never again, either for or against slavery. 
It would seem as one of the blessings of 
this war that God was about to cut the 
Gordian knot that has so long bound us 
to difficulties and danger, and solve the 
problem of slavery, a fruitful source of 
the bitterness and crimes that have vexed 
the body politic. Our forefathers began 
the War of the Revolution because they 
were compelled to it in self defence. At 
its close God crow r ned them with inde- 
pendence, a far greater blessing than they 
at first sought. This war was imposed 
upon us. We did not seek it. We were 
driven to it for our very existence as a na- 
tion. Our existence ! This was the only 
rallying cry that roused our thousands 
and hundreds of thousands, and mar- 
shalled them for battle. That existence, 
under God, we shall preserve, and exalt, 
and purify, for a higher and holier des- 



tiny among the hundreds of the earth. 
And new light seems faintly streaming 
upon the vexed question of slavery. God 
grant that his own light may lead us in 
the way of duty in regard to it, and that 
in his own time, not far distant, the Stars 
and Stripes may float over this entire na- 
tion, black and white, rejoicing in the 
light, and singing the anthems of the 
free. 

In view of such facts and thoughts as 
these, while we sorrow over the evils of 
this fratricidal strife, have we not abun- 
dant reason to rejoice and give thanks to 
God that his mercy is still over us, and 
that amidst the din of war we can see 
rising up to meet us the bright shadows 
of glorious and happy events, coming on 
to bless us with a greater prosperity and 
a more secure and blessed heritage ? Let 
us, then, this day lift up our voice in 
prayer and gladness for this land of the 
free and home of the brave. Let us in 
those noble poetic strains shout 
UNION AND LIBERTY. 

Flag of the heroes who left us their glory, 
Borne through their battle-fields*" thunder and 
flame, 
Blazoned in song and illumined in story, 
Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame ! 
I'l) with our banner bright. 
Sprinkled with starry light, 
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore. 
While through the sounding sky 
Loud rings the nation's cry — 
Union and Liberty ! One evermore ! 

Light of our firmament, guide of our nation, 
Pride of her children, and honored afar, 

Let the wide beams of thy full constellation, 
Scatter each cloud that would darken a star! 

Empire imsceptered! what foe shall assail thee, 
Bearing the standard of liberty's van? 

Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail thee, 
Striving with men for the birthright of man ! 

Vet if. by madness ami tr lachery blighted, 
I towns the dark hour when the sword thou must 
draw. 

Then, with the arms of thy miliums united. 
Smite the bold traitors to freedom and law! 

Lord of the Universe ! shield us and guide us 

Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun! 
Thou nasi unitddua: who shall divide us J 
Keep us, oli! keep us. the many in one! 
Up with our banner bright, 
Sprinkled with starry light. 
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore' 
While through the sounding sky, 



Loud rings the nation's cry — 
Union and Liberty ! one evermore ! 

Let us not to-day fail to remember our 
absent ones in the tented field and on the 
borders of strife. Let us encourage our 
hearts with the memory of their patriot- 
ism, and as we look at their vacant places, 
thank God that he gave them a heart and 
the courage to go, and invoke his bene- 
diction and ble sing for them. 

If God has talfen any of the absent ones 
from the field of glory, let us hope that 
their Thanksgiving is purer, and sweeter, 
and more jubilant than ours can be. Let 
us believe that they look down with lov- 
ing eyes upon our feast; and so let us 
turn again to what is left of life, in tran- 
quil submission, and so work and wait 
until our change comes. 

Let us not forget to-day that victory 
belongs to God. Thank God to-day that 
we have an army ! Thank God to-day 
that we have a navy ! Thank Him that 
we have heard glad tidings from them ! 
His arm hath gotten us the victory. Not 
unto us — not unto us, but unto His name 
be the glory given, for His mercy and His 
truth's sake. 

Let us not forget the poor in our enjoy- 
ments to-day. As we turn to partake of 
our good things, let us remember the 
Lord's charge : " The poorfl ye have al- 
ways with you. Inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto one of these, (my disciples,) 
ye have done it unto me. Go your ways ; 
eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send 
portions unto those for whom nothing is 
prepared. This day is holy unto the 
Lord, neither be ye sorry, for the joy of 
the Lord is your strength. Jehovah is 
the God of this nation, and even through 
sufferings will he make us perfect to ac- 
complish his mission for us in our greater 
usefulness, prosperity and happiness. 
Amen. 



W60 












jk ft : *^^"- v/ -lilt ** ;^K&: > 

°. ^^ • 







K oV 








o 











■*** 



iV«* 







BOOKBINDING « 



5**4. 



\5, **T7«* A 



0* o"-'- ^ 



* v .. 



^V 



Hq. >^ 



/ 



• A 










